Spencer Fehrenbacher set sail on the Diamond Princess cruise on January 20. He had no idea he was about to be exposed to one of the world's largest coronavirus outbreaks outside of China.
Fehrenbacher and his friend Gordon Christoph, who was also on the cruise, spoke to Business Insider about their experience while finishing their quarantine at Travis Air Force Base in California. "I keep hearkening back to all these zombie movies that have been made over the last decade," Fehrenbacher said."Nobody wants to be deemed as infected."
On February 3, a day before the cruise was slated to end, a voice on the ship's intercom announced the discovery of a case of the new coronavirus onboard. Fehrenbacher had just recovered from a fever.The announcer asked anyone who had experienced fever, chills, or cough to report to the ship's medical center. Fehrenbacher debated whether or not to go.
He fell asleep, then woke back up when the staff came around at 4 a.m. They questioned him and took his temperature. The following evening, given his recent fever, they came back and took a swab from him to send off for testing. Fehrenbacher said it felt like there was a"wall for information" as he waited for his test results. They never came. He eventually found out he'd tested negative, but said"it was just a process of elimination."On February 7, the ship's captain and CNN correspondents confirmed that all the tests taken on the ship had been processed.Nobody came to his door to take him off the ship.
To pass the time, Fehrenbacher read a science-fiction trilogy and watched videos that his mom sent him with messages from friends and family."It just feels good to see familiar faces and hear those voices," Fehrenbacher said at the time."When I'm feeling good about the whole thing, it's super encouraging."
Before that, Fehrenbacher had been championing the quarantine efforts of Princess Cruises and the Japanese government. He'd even written an op-ed about it for USA Today. The evacuees boarded buses to take them to Haneda airport — a 20-minute drive, by Fehrenbacher's estimate. But he said they sat in the buses for hours, with people coughing all around them.Fehrenbacher said some people tried to hide their coughs, though many had a lung-deep, rasping cough that indicates more than a scratchy throat."All you can do is kind of try to get as small as you can and hope that that respirator is fully sealed around your face," Fehrenbacher said.
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